


Scar That Never Heals

by fandomfrolics



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Iron Man 3, Post-
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-15
Updated: 2013-07-15
Packaged: 2017-12-20 05:46:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/883630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomfrolics/pseuds/fandomfrolics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The arc reactor's gone and it leaves quite a mess in its wake. It's a good thing Pepper's always been good with messes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scar That Never Heals

“ _I done too much damage_

_Got nothing left to feel_

_My self is broke and bandaged_

_Her love is a scar that never heals”_

-Jeremy Fisher, _Scar That Never Heals_

  


"Tony?"

Tony doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge that he's heard Pepper's voice, soft and fuzzy with sleep, pretends that his name rolling off her tongue hasn’t crawled into his brain and settled there. He just continues to stare unblinking at the stacks of t-shirts set out in front of him, all neatly folded and carefully kept away behind the usually-closed doors of his closet.

"Tony?" And this time the voice is right in his ear, but softer somehow for it. He feels arms snake their way around his waist from behind, a sharp chin settle onto his shoulder, the point and the warmth both softened by the thick fabric of his sweater. "Are you okay?" Lips press against the side of his neck, a light touch, comfort in its intention. A soft hesitant breath, shaky gust ghosting over his skin as a thumb begins stroking across the skin of his stomach, one hand settling against the warm skin just above his waistband. "Did you have another nightmare?"

Nightmare nightmare nightmare. It’s hard to remember a time when he _didn't_ have a nightmare and _god_ he's grown tired of that word. Maybe if he keeps saying it it won’t be a word anymore and then it won’t exist anymore and no that doesn’t make any sense.

He blinks, the rows of clothing coming back into focus.

"All my t-shirts have holes in them."

The thumb stills, only for a second, then starts again and Tony would never figure out how Pepper always manages to untangle the jumble of wires that is his brain but it’s one puzzle he doesn’t mind leaving unsolved.

She lifts her chin but doesn’t let go as Tony leans forward and pulls off a shirt from the stack closest to him, shaking it out and holding it up by the shoulders.

It isn’t a particularly memorable t-shirt, an old grey one that, like most of his t-shirts, he uses mostly in the workshop and as a result is riddled in stains that will never come out and he shakes his head before his brain could form some sort of analogy out of that one.

He stares at the hole in the center, perfectly cut instead of carelessly torn like the first few had been, when he hadn't known _how_ he felt about the thing sticking out of his chest but he sure as hell knew he wasn't going to hide it.

He loosens his fingers and lets the t-shirt fall to the ground in a messy lump, then reaches out his arm and picks up the next one. One-by-one he pulls, stares, and releases, not really sure what he’s looking for but methodical in his approach all the same.

The pile of t-shirts on the floor grows bigger and the one in the closet smaller and Pepper's thumb continues to swipe across his stomach, back and forth, back and forth, the previously icy skin of her hand warmed by his own as she shares in his body heat and his quiet contemplation.

The stack almost dwindled down to nothing, he pauses, fingers tightening ever so slightly around the black and red t-shirt he holds up. In the muted light it’s hard to make out the small signature he knew is scrawled in the corner, just above the hem.

He doesn’t know why he put a hole in this one -- he never even wore it. It was a remnant from a time long past, an era where he still tried to hold onto memories as he made them because these were the good ones, the days when things were _right_ and life was _good_ and he could speak in clichés instead of riddles, wear smiles instead of masks.

The shirt serves its purpose all too well, the thin fabric bringing back a rush of memories of a concert in a muddy field, too much weed and too little water and a 16-year-old playing along with the brand new adults around him until he becomes one of them but giggling too high and loud for the illusion to last as they sneak through the hole in the fence and run backstage, ducking and weaving so the burly men at the front won’t spot them and gaping speechless as they run smack into the lead singer of the band that changed them.

And Tony knows he didn't have to do it that way, that he could have had any number of people call up Angus Young and tell him 'Hey, Howard Stark's son wants to meet you' but really where was the fun in that and he'd only just managed to make his peers forget who he was.

_Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipppppp_

The hole made it easy for him, made it simple to fist a hand in each side and just pull until he’s left with two old pieces of fabric, thirty years unwashed and somehow no worse for it.

Pepper's hand rises up, the small motions of her thumb widening into bigger circles drawn by her entire hand, as if there’s a direct correlation between the amount of comfort she wants to convey and the surface area of skin she’s coming into contact with. He wonders if there’s a formula he could derive, if he could find Pepper’s Constant from the line of best fit.

And then her finger brushes against the bottom of his scar and he flinches, his hands clenching around the pieces of t-shirt still clutched between his fingers, and his breath catches and Pepper's seems to catch too.

"Tony?" she tries again, an exhale more than a word, really, and he swivels in her arms and closes his eyes and lets his forehead fall against hers and just breathes in her air because he doesn’t know where his own has gone.

She drags her hand over his skin, sliding from his back around his torso until it comes to rest on his stomach again and Tony opens his eyes, watching her watch him as she carefully slides it up towards his chest, inch-by-inch.

Tony wraps one hand around her wrist, stopping the climb, and takes a deep breath. "I don't--"

Pepper flexes her fingers, the pads of her fingertips rubbing gently against the unmarked skin they’re stilled on. She doesn’t say anything as his words catch in his throat, and he notes absently that it isn’t the reflection of the blue light that gives her eyes that glow after all.

He gradually releases his grip, loosens his fingers one by one and flattens his hand over hers instead, his sweatshirt the bridge between their skin.

Carefully, deliberately, Pepper continues to slide her hand upwards, her fingers creeping closer and closer to the damaged tissue thats spread out all over Tony’s skin, the marks scrawled on his chest like the work of a toddler let loose with a marker on the living room wall.

She reaches the point she’d brushed before and keeps moving, not stopping until her hand comes to rest right in the middle of his chest, in the precise spot his arc reactor had lived.

His breath hitches and her thumb began its familiar motion once again, painting its unique print across the ridges and valleys, charting the unfamiliar territory that is Tony’s healing chest.

She dips her head and presses her lips to the hot skin of his neck, up towards his jaw, then gets up on her tiptoes so she can finish with a tender, lingering kiss to his forehead. Tony’s eyes flutter close so he can just lose himself in this, in her soft breaths and light embrace, her warm touch somehow cooling in its effect, calming the fire he feels burning beneath his skin. He feels Pepper’s head settle in the groove of his neck and rests his cheek on top of her feathery hair, wrapping one arm around her waist.

They stand like that for a moment, breathing each other in. And then Pepper pulls her hand out from under his sweatshirt and tangles it in his hand instead, tugging him gently back towards the bed. He follows willingly enough and they settle back under the covers, him on his back but his cheek pressed to the pillow so he can look at her and feel that warmth again. She curls on her side and slides her hand back under his sweatshirt, returning it to its former spot and beginning the soothing strokes of her thumb once again. Back and forth, back and forth.

“Did I ever tell you how I got that scar on my knee?” she says, voice tempered to match the subdued lighting.

Tony shakes his head.

 “It was pretty stupid actually,” she murmurs, her gentle caresses continuing as she speaks. “I was thirteen and we were on a class trip, somewhere up in New Hampshire. And there was this girl, she _hated_ me, I still have no idea why, but she somehow knew that I didn’t do well with heights.” Tony’s brow arches at that. “Yes, I was terrified of heights when I was younger, and it’s a good thing I got over that because _you_ have a horrible habit of picking me up and then flying off into the clouds.” He huffs, because he always thought she kinda liked it when he took her flying, except of course when it’s to get away from crazy people but really if she’d stop running right _at_ the danger...but then, of course, she wouldn’t be Pepper if she did that.

“Anyway,” she says, as if she can see the tangential path his mind has sprinted off down. “We stopped under this gigantic tree while our teacher goes for a cigarette and somehow this girl convinces everyone I shouldn’t win class president unless I can climb that damn tree.

“So I did it.” She takes a deep breath, her mind clearly taking her back to that moment. ”I still don’t know _how_ but I did it. I crawled all the way out onto a branch and even managed to wave down at that bitch Sarah, who was _seething_. And everyone cheered and it was amazing.”

Tony holds his breath, waiting for the part where little Pepper’s victorious moment turns into her falling straight out of the tree and into the hard forest floor.

“I climbed back down just in time; our teacher was back a second later and we were moving again. Well, everyone else was. Meanwhile, I was leaning against the tree and trying desperately not to vomit. I realized it was pretty much a lost cause though so instead I ran away into the trees to puke in peace.” She smiles wryly. “Or at least, I tried to. I tripped over one of the roots from that stupid tree and gashed my knee open on a rock. And _then_ I puked everywhere.”

Tony can’t help but snort and Pepper’s smile turns fond.

“I hoped and prayed that it would heal clean because my mother had drilled into me that scars were ‘unbecoming on a woman’. But. It didn’t. And for a whole year, I didn’t wear anything that showed my knees.

“And then one day I found myself facing my fear of heights again. And I looked down at my knee and I remembered that this was easy because I’d done it before. And I’d survived.”

Tony brushes her cheek with the back of his hand. “You’ve got the scars to prove it,” he murmurs.

“I’ve got the scars to prove it,” she affirms, her hand swiping over the damaged tissue of his chest.

“There’s this old Zimbabwean proverb,” she begins again after the silence has dragged on too long. “It’s something like--“

“’A coward has no scar.’”

Pepper looks surprised for a moment, but then she nods and Tony remembers staring bare-chested into a mirror, a car battery clutched in one hand, and a man in a cave asserting those five words with a fire in his eyes.

It’s words he’s managed to forget between upgrade after upgrade and poison creeping through his veins but now, after completing that final step in this mess of a journey, it’s words he needs to remember so that he’ll remember not to forget.

Pepper seems to sense that she’s done what she wanted to and her tender expression turns mischievous, a spark igniting in her eyes. “Now this scar.” She pokes at her butt through the blankets. “ _That’s_ an interesting story. I got this when I--“

“You never told me any of this before,” Tony breaks in suddenly and Pepper quiets, looks at him.

“You never asked,” she replies, matter-of-fact.

And no, he hasn’t. Pepper knows everything from his social security number to the stupid way he says things without saying them and he never even knew that she used to have a fear of heights. _Or_ that she ran for class president in middle school. All the little things that in their triviality add up to the Pepper he knows today. The Pepper who would do whatever she could to soothe his insecurities and make him want to be a better man.

“I love you,” he says fiercely, forcefully, pushing the words out almost in an attempt to manifest them physically instead of letting her read them in his eyes like he usually does.

Pepper’s lips quirk. “I know,” she replies, features soft. She leans forward and presses a kiss to his nose. “Now shut up and let me tell my story.”

Tony snuggles deeper into his pillow and does just that.


End file.
